Pious Exercises of the Living Rosary

Pious Exercises of the Living Rosary
By Venerable Pauline Marie Jaricot
(Foundress of the Association of the Living Rosary and the Propagation of the Faith)

The aim of the Living Rosary is to ask God, through the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary, the conservation of the Faith in Catholic countries, the conversion of sinners, the strengthening of the just, and the exaltation of the Holy Church.

The people who join together for this pious exercise, divide among themselves the recitation of the prayers of the entire Rosary, and divide into groups of 15, in honor of the 15 principal mysteries of our redemption. Their intention is to form, by the union of their hearts, as so many living rosaries which unceasingly recall to the Celestial Father the sign of salvation manifested to St. Dominic by the Mother of Mercies.

After Our Lady of the Rosary, the Association recognizes and honors as its mediatrix before God, the illustrious Virgin and Martyr, St. Philomena, named by the Sovereign Pontiff, protectress of the Living Rosary.

The principal obligation of each Associate consists in reciting, each day, one decade; that is, one Our Father, ten Hail Mary, and the Glory Be to the Father, meditating, according to one’s comprehension, on one of the mysteries of the Rosary, whose allotment is done each month.

By this method, the great rosary of St. Dominic is said in its entirety each day, in all 15 decades, and all the mysteries are honored at one time.

This ancient and venerable prayer, so productive of fruits of salvation and of which the experience of many centuries has demonstrated its efficacy to touch the heart of God, acquired, in some manner, a new strength in the Living Rosary, by the great number and the concord of those who recite it.

In prescribing to pray for others, this exercise is also a means of personal sanctification for the Associates. A short meditation, which is reiterated every day for a month, on the same mystery, joined to the recitation of the decade, insinuates little by little, in the spirit, the truths of the religion and increases in the hearts the live of Jesus and Mary.

The reports of favors obtained by the exercise of the Living Rosary contributes also to nourish the piety of the Associates by developing among them the virtues of charity and of zeal at the same time furnishing powerful motives of encouragement and edification.

Besides, the Associates who, for the triumph of the Faith and the salvation of souls offer each day to God the Father, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the infinite merits of the Savior’s mysteries, may well hope that these divine merits will be applied to them, through God’s goodness, and will draw upon them, according to their needs, either new life or grades of conversion.

The brevity of the Living Rosary puts it at the disposal of the faithful of all ages and of all conditions; the persons who say daily the entire Rosary, or the third of the Rosary, can reserve for the pious exercise one of the decades they are in the habit of reciting. As to those who do not practice this devotion in any manner, the Living Rosary cannot but dispose them to adopt it later on, by making known to them the consolations attached to saying it.

Our Holy Father, Pope Gregory XVI, enriched this institution with numerous indulgences in favor of all the Catholic countries and gave it for a protector a pious Cardinal eminently devoted to the august Mother of God.

By a title of affiliation that the Principal-Directors hold by goodness of T.R.P. Superior General of the order of St. Dominic, the Associates of the Living Rosary are admitted to participation in the merits of all the holy masses, prayers, penitence, preaching, and the other good works of the religious of this Order.

For the indulgences and the other rules, see the manual for the use of the Associates published by the main bureau. (Lyon rise of Fourvieres, 50).

Moreover, if the Zealot wishes to keep a memorandum of the allotment of the mysteries, it is easy for him or her to transfer, at the time of changes, the name of each Associate beside the mystery he or she had been assigned.

Hence, if by the death or any other reason, the group of fifteen loses one of its members, the mobility of the little tabs makes it possible to change the inscription of names without altering the bulletin-board.

Venerable Pauline Marie Jaricot
http://www.philomena.org/